Chapter 132: Same Animal, Different Beast
Alliance Central didn’t believe the numbers either.
The report reached the verification office within minutes of the sync, and the duty officer who pulled it up actually laughed out loud before catching herself.
"A hundred and fourteen Final-Stage Divine Terrors." She scrolled further, expression flattening fast. "Nine hundred more beneath that. From one Digicard. One visitor who walked in off the street. And the age is less than 25? What is this joke?"
Her supervisor leaned over her shoulder, read the same line twice, and reached for a secure channel without a word of explanation.
"Flag it," he said. "Exclusive scanning, full trace. If this is fabricated, I want to know exactly how someone spoofed contribution data this cleanly, because it would be the cleanest forgery I’ve ever seen."
"And if it isn’t fabricated?"
He didn’t answer that part right away. "Then we’ve got a bigger problem than paperwork."
The Digicard vanished into a sealed verification queue within the hour, marked priority, marked classified, marked with exactly the kind of careful, nervous urgency reserved for numbers nobody wanted to be wrong about either way.
...
Back at Starfall Harmony, Hina was still trying to make the pieces fit together into something that made sense.
"You said you beat them." Her eyes darted between Roan’s empty spot and the man who very much wasn’t supposed to still be alive. "Roan and Corin are Legendary-rank. And you..."
She stopped herself right there, something cold settling into her expression.
Aidan had an F-rank talent. The worst possible draw, the kind of talent that ended careers before they started. He’d been in a coma on top of that, body too weak to even hold a blade properly the last time she’d seen him breathing.
None of that added up to a man who’d knocked out two Legendary-rank prodigies without breaking a sweat.
"Why," she said slowly, "are you this strong?"
Aidan didn’t answer. He didn’t get the chance to.
Roan and Corin reappeared in the doorway a moment later, both of them going pale the instant their eyes landed on Aidan again, some instinctive, animal part of them clearly remembering exactly what that darkness had felt like.
Neither of them said a word at first. They just stood there, half a step behind Boris, color still not fully returned to either face.
The fear lasted about two seconds before Boris’s presence at their side visibly stiffened both their spines back into something resembling pride.
Boris circled a slow half step, looking Aidan over with open contempt, the kind reserved for something he’d already decided wasn’t worth the effort of taking seriously. "The one who ambushed my juniors and dragged himself in here uninvited. You need to be taught a lesson."
"The fight will end badly for you." Aidan didn’t bother raising his voice, didn’t bother looking particularly interested either. "Don’t bother with it."
Corin found his nerve first, chin lifting despite the memory clearly still sitting behind his eyes. "We already reported you to the receptionist. Guards are coming."
"Actually," Roan added, though with noticeably less confidence than Corin had managed, "she said the situation’s complicated. Told us not to provoke you. Said your card’s under investigation."
Boris’s eyes lit up at that like someone had just handed him a gift.
"Under investigation." He smiled, slow and pleased with himself, the expression of a man who thought he’d just solved a riddle nobody else had bothered to.
"So we’ve got ourselves someone the Alliance is already hunting, playing hero in a school he doesn’t belong in. Piece of trash." He rolled his shoulders, pressure climbing off him deliberately, showy in a way Aidan’s never was. "I’ll enjoy catching you myself. Consider it a public service."
"Aidan." Hina’s voice cut through the tension, sharp with something between embarrassment and desperation. "Apologize. Please. This is getting out of hand."
Something in Aidan’s expression flattened. "I was here to see something. I’ve seen it." He looked at her, and whatever warmth had lingered in his voice a moment ago was gone entirely. "As for him."
His gaze slid back to Boris, and the irritation he’d been swallowing since the insult finally found somewhere to go.
"Find an arena." A thin, sharp smile crossed his face.
[Arthur: Woohoo! Beat his ass!]
[Finn: And then I’ll eat him. I’ve been thinking of trying Arthur’s diet.]
[Arthur: That’s not a diet, that’s just eating people.]
[Finn: Exactly. A diet.]
"Follow me. It’s nearby." Boris sneered.
Aidan fell into step behind Boris without another word, and Hina turned toward Beatrix the moment he was out of earshot, mouth already opening.
Beatrix cut her off before a single word made it out.
"Hina." Her voice carried none of its usual warmth, just tired honesty. "I didn’t bring him here. He brought me. Whatever you’re trying to ask, the answer is no, he’s not the Aidan you knew."
She let that sit a moment before finishing it.
"He’s the same animal, but a different beast."
...
The arena wasn’t large, a modest sparring ground built for academy exhibitions rather than real spectacle, but word traveled fast when a Divine-rank senior student squared off against someone visibly half his age.
By the time Aidan and Boris took their places at the center, the stands had filled well past what the space was built for, students still filing in through every entrance, craning for a better view.
All because Boris, the pride of their academy, was fighting someone.
"Who is he?"
"No idea. Never seen that face before."
"Which academy’s he from?"
"Doesn’t matter. Look at Boris’s face. He’s going to wreck the kid."
"Handsome, though."
"He doesn’t look nervous at all. Should he look nervous?"
"He should look terrified. That’s Boris."
Beatrix watched from the front row with Tom curled against her shoulder, Hina and Layla settling in beside her without quite meeting each other’s eyes.
"His hair." Hina finally broke the silence, voice quiet. "His eyes. They’re different than I remember. Why?"
Beatrix shook her head slowly. "I don’t know."
"You don’t know? You kept him for over a year."
"All I know," Beatrix said, watching Aidan roll his neck once at the arena’s center, entirely unbothered by the crowd or the man across from him, "is that during that one year, his soul went somewhere none of us could follow. He experienced something none of us could imagine. And whatever it was, it changed him completely."
She didn’t look away from him as she said the rest.
"He’s beyond us now. All of us."